For a Monday, yesterday sure was long.

I ended up doing ten hours straight at the parts store. I had actually began trying to leave about four-thirty, which would have been eight and a half, but it seemed as though we had a steady stream of customers coming in with most of them wanting some odd part. We had a late minute run on hydraulic hoses and fittings, so there was lots of looking for the correct fittings. Of course this made for a late run to what I think was a pretty good day sales wise. For the record, Chris does very well with the hydraulic hose and building replacements.

I told him Wednesday we were going to begin looking at coupler adapter kits. He told me he doesn't have a lot of call for these but I have had two customers in less than a week searching for these. When this gets difficult is when they come in wanting a fitting which may be the same size on both ends but different type threads, of course a farmer can complicate this by wanting male thread on one side and female thread on the other. Sheesh!

Yesterday Randy, the heavy equipment specialist, was in to make sales calls with Chris. I don't think they made contact with a large percentage of their targets, but by the end of the day nearly everyone in the small community knew about their attempt. They we traveling in a big one ton dually towing a large enclosed trailer. Both of these sported the popular splash paint job of yellow and purplish blue on white, and I would have to admit it is a very eye catching rig!

So far I would have to say that Randy is the brightest spot on the national company's horizon. He was mature, he was knowledgeable, and he was adept at sharing his information. This was a stark contrast to the young irresponsible reps that have been in. They don't possess the knowledge, they can't share what they don't have and all they want to do is collect their paycheck. Of course I have to be fair to them by disclosing the fact that they are really busy getting their technical school certification for parts distribution while working on their bachelor degree at University of Phoenix on-line. Duh! How the heck did they get these jobs?

I guess Chris is getting more comfortable with leaving me in the store alone. Every time he is fixing to leave I feel confident that I can handle whatever walks through the door, by the time he returns, I have been exposed and expanded to do something I hadn't done before. My first challenge was a farmer looking for a hub seal that is older than dirt. Currently hub seals are installed in the hub and a rubber or similar material provides a seal around the shaft. What this farmer had was an old seal that static mounts on the shaft and the seal material is around the perimeter of the hub. Add to this, he had no make or manufacturer, no year model and the part number was almost worn off. Try as I might, we had nothing to match and I found no documentation in the computer or any of the books. It was with a heavy (and dejected) heart that I referred him to a parts store in Sweetwater. (Later in the day this same farmer returned for other parts and I inquired about his seal search. He told me the other parts store couldn't match it either. In a small way, that was a personal victory for me.) Next oddity was a merchandise return on a charge account for credit. Sounds simple enough. It took me a couple of minutes to think it through but I did it. The next was a little more difficult. A customer wanted to pay cash for parts and on the same check pay some on his account. I began by doing a cash customer invoice for the parts the customer was buying (which was wrong), then the checkout screen wouldn't allow me to put in the extra amount above the invoice total. Chris walked in about then and took over. He went to the A/R screen and credited the entire amount to the customer's account, then he returned to the previous screen and voided the invoice I had built. This began a discussion because in my mind, the merchandise was never charged out. We should have put a sign on the door proclaiming "Pay on your account and receive free merchandise!" Finally Chris agreed, and we invoiced the parts again, but this time on the customer's charge account.

That ruined Chris's mood for about an hour.

Chris made the comment that DJ and I get "bent" about the smallest things and he doesn't understand why it is so important to go through the extra steps. I told him we don't enjoy correcting him, we do it because we are looking out for his best interest. Hey, you can't just give parts away.

Kyle Patrick made my hair gray. I wonder if working with Chris will make it turn black again. Naaaah. It will probably fall out.

The Virginia Tech massacre is tragic. The death toll this morning is 33. I don't understand what makes someone do something like that. It would be almost understandable if the anger and action was directed at one or two individuals responsible for the anger. But to open up and shoot at random targets just doesn't make sense.

I guess JFK's assassination was one of the first things I remember that just didn't make sense. I remember thinking "Why would any one do such a bad thing?" A few years later I can remember Charles Whitman in the University of Texas Tower and asking the same thing. Later we had more school shooting sprees, several by students much younger.

No doubt the majority of these were mentally ill. Some see it as a means to an end, they just don't want to go alone or are too chicken to pull the trigger themselves so they incite someone else to do it for them. Others, I think, are mean and vicious. Some think they will live in infamy.

Recently I overheard a conversation between sackers at the local grocery store. One sacker was talking about "poppin' a cap" was so cool in a video or movie. "Man, he just pulled out that gun and pointed and pulled, it was so cool! Popped a cap in that dude's head!"

I think kids now days don't have any idea. They don't associate the shooting with death or injury. They didn't grow up with westerns and war movies where people died. They didn't grow up playing cowboys and Indians. They've grown up with laser swords, stun guns, paint ball guns and such. No permanent damage from their games!

Hey. This is real.

My today is up in the air. I am waiting to see what the weather might do. I had planned on going back to the farm to work on the equipment project, but the forecast calls for showers and this job is in the outdoors. I have several to do-s here at the house but I had hoped to leave them to Thursday.

Pepa had a doctor's appointment yesterday in Lubbock. They did blood work prior to his second and final bead radiation treatment next week. The doctor told him he could opt out and do a series of the traditional radiation treatments but Pepa declined. I know this procedure wasn't very pleasant and all of us had whispered about whether or not he would return for the final treatment. I think it was to everyones relief that he told the doctor he would be back next week.

I have found the parts store is a place where if you keep your head down and just give an occasional grunt in agreement (or amazement) it will access an endless amount of conversation and information. These conversations are sometimes comical. In rare instances I may hold more information than them, but it is like the childhood party where you tell the person next to you something and they pass it on around the circle and everyone compares what the statement started out "as" and what it ended up "as". One of the traits that makes you a good listener is that even if you know more than them, you don't interject or correct their version. You just let them spin their tale and after they leave you just smile and shake your head.

I have been told that a parts store is the male equivalent to a beauty shop (for women) when it comes to gossip. I would believe it.

Ollie had called me and told me she was going to e-mail me some ad info for a potential customer. She wanted my ad copy today. I never received the info. Guess what. She has no ad copy. Go figure.

Well, I'd best get my day untracked.

Have a good one!

FATHER, don't give up on me yet!